Acta Phys. -Chim. Sin. ›› 2011, Vol. 27 ›› Issue (08): 1868-1874.doi: 10.3866/PKU.WHXB20110803

• ELECTROCHEMISTRY AND NEW ENERGY • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Preparation of ‘Sandwich-Like’ Au/Pt Composite Multilayer Films for Methanol Electrooxidation

ZHAO Jing, SUN Yue, LI Yong-Jun, LIANG Ren   

  1. Department of Chemisty, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha 410082, P. R. China
  • Received:2011-04-11 Revised:2011-05-31 Published:2011-07-19
  • Contact: LI Yong-Jun E-mail:liyongjunef@gmail.com
  • Supported by:

    The project was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (20703016), Scientific and Technological Projects of Hunan Province, China (2010FJ6030) and State Key Laboratory for Physical Chemistry of Solid Surface (Xiamen University), China.

Abstract:

Pt/Au composite monolayer films were fabricated by combining interfacial assembly and under-potential deposition (UPD) with redox replacement. Based on the Pt/Au composite monolayers, an organic linker-free method was proposed for the fabrication of sandwich-like Pt/Au composite multilayer films: (Pt/Au)n, Ptm/Au, and (Pt3/Au)k (n, m, or k represents the layer number). Electron microscopy was used to characterize the morphologies of the Au monolayer films and the Pt/Au composite multilayer films. For each type of composite multilayer films, a common characteristic was that the effective electroactive areas increased with an increase in the layer number. Additionally, the electrocatalytic activities of the composite multilayer films for methanol electrooxidation are systematically discussed by examining the catalytic current densities and its tolerance toward carbonaceous species. For the same series of composite multilayer films (Pt/Au)3, Pt3/Au, and (Pt3/Au)2 showed a higher catalytic current density than bulk Pt (Ptbulk). Among the three composite multilayer films, (Pt/Au)3 showed the best catalytic performance in terms of the current density and tolerance toward carbonaceous species. The tolerance of (Pt/Au)3 to carbonaceous species was found to be better than that of the commercial Pt/C catalyst. This better electrocatalytic activity may be attributed to the maximum synergistic effect between Au and Pt, which depends on the Pt:Au atomic ratio and also the arrangement of Pt and Au nanoparticles.

Key words: Interfacial self-assembly, Under-potential deposition, Au/Pt composite multilayer film, Electrooxidation, Methanol